EXCLUSIVE
STILL: A MICHAEL J. FOX MOVIE An intimate portrait of the actor’s life with Parkinson’s.
With Still, director Davis Guggenheim set out not to make a Michael J. Fox documentary, but specifically a Michael J. Fox movie. ‘I thought wouldn’t it be great to make a documentary that feels like an 80s movie?’ says Guggenheim. ‘When I first had this idea, I started jotting down words. My first words were “wild ride”.’
As the subject of this wild ride, Fox guides Guggenheim through his life as a child star and Hollywood sensation, through to and beyond his Parkinson’s diagnosis. Building its narrative in a hybrid of interview footage, dramatisation and clip montage, the film is what Guggenheim calls a ‘jambalaya’ of sources. ‘Narrative structure is everything to me,’ the director says, illustrating Fox’s life through footage of the actor in his TV and movie work (yes, including Back to the Future). This also incorporates sections from Fox’s biographies, which the actor reads from himself. ‘A lot of documentaries start with absolutely nothing, and we started with Michael’s four books. We had these incredible scenes that were already beautifully written,’ says Guggenheim.
The An Inconvenient Truth director stumbled across Fox’s story in a New York Times interview, while searching for a new project. He was immediately taken with the actor’s outlook as he vividly described a recent fall. ‘It’s a heavy scene, but the way he writes it, the tone was so appealing to me,’ Guggenheim says. ‘Not only dramatic, but also very witty, very wise about what it means to be.’
It was important to subject and director that the film didn’t shy away from the reality of Fox’s condition. This includes footage of Fox being interviewed in the wake of a series of devastating falls. ‘He broke his arm, he broke his hand, his face. That was very much in the background of the movie until it became in the movie,’ says Guggenheim.
Yet, for its honesty, the film’s tone never veers into overt, schmaltzy sentimentality. Says Guggen
